Research question and how you chose it: Begin with a presentation of your research question. Discuss how the question emerged and thoughts about how this might inform your practice.
Explanation of how and why you collected the data: Then move to your compelling characterization of: * Why you collected the data you are using; * how you went about collecting the data
Explanation of approaches you found useful: Discuss the various means of analysis that you found useful, the ones that generated the findings you will share
Findings and hunches: Discuss what you learned from your data. This should be a clear and straightforward presentation of your results. This does not mean that the prose should be dry. Write about your findings in a manner that makes them seem interesting and easy to understand. Use charts, graphs and other visusal where useful.
Triangulation of the data that informs findings: Discuss the relationships between the various types of data you have presented and your emerging findings. To what extent can you support your interpretations with multiple sources of data?
I. My research question emerged as one central question: "Which facilitation moves push students see the world from the perspective of the main character?" The subquestion is: what steps build up to I really chose to focus in on this one question because I wanted to know what I can do to help students reach this point. I became interested in this question as I was designing a literary unit on the book Lyddie by Katherine Paterson, about a poor farm girl in Vermont who has no choice but to go off and work for the textile factory in Lowell, Massachusetts in order to try to save the family farm. In previous novels, there was always a push for personal connections. In fact, personal connections were required for full credit on reader responses. However, I found that some students were attempting to answer the question, "What would I do if I were [this character]?" They would answer using their own mindset, using their own values and thoughts from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old middle class Jewish kid living in 2010. I wanted to find ways to get them to step into the character in the book. I developed a set of discussion questions that had this goal in mind: will this help students step into the mindset of the character? I found that developing my goal first, and planning backwards from there, was a very intentional and successful method for developing a literary unit.
II. For my data, I chose to focus on 6 students across a range of reading abilities and from both genders. I chose two students with weak reading abilities: Hannah has a hard time transferring events from a book into abstract ideas or a broader perspective. Bernie struggles with reading comprehension, but is able to grapple larger concepts and themes, but does this mostly from his own opinion, and does not readily look into the text to inform his answers. Brandon and Goldie are both hit-or-miss students. Their work is not consistent. Sometimes Brandon will respond to the reading thoughtfully and thoroughly, and sometimes he tries to do as little work as possible and still get full credit (self-admittedly). Goldie tends to go with her first thought and does not generally go over her work to revise or think about it. Gabby and Jude are both skilled readers and are able to read the text carefully for nuances and inferences with ease. Gabby thinks about what she will write, meticulously records her thoughts, and revises her work. Jude gives thought to his work as he's writing it, and his strong suit is that he brings fresh insight to the text, and probes deeply into it. I wanted to see the effect of my teacher moves across all reading levels.
Throughout the novel, I tended to call on these six students more often (selfishly), and recorded some of their class discussion input. I also photocopied their reader response journals, and videotaped one session (that I will use).
III. In analyzing the data, I categorized my teacher moves, which ended up falling under the categories: (1) giving them an interpretive question that focused on character motives, (2) giving them a prompt that called upon them to construct a hypothetical situation, (3) asking them broad questions about themes in the book (freedom, hope, the effects of industry), (4) posing a class discussion question centering on character motive, and (5) prompting them to act out what they predict will happen next. When looking at the data, I looked for (1) their ability to interpret the story and explain why the character did or said something, (2) their response contained a realistic portrayal of the characters and the situation, drawn from events previously in the story (3) their ability to transfer events in the book to big ideas using examples or explanations from the book, (4) contributions to a class discussion in response to another student's thoughts, and (5) their ability to act out a realistic and impassioned portrayal of their prediction that contains evidence of previous events in the book.
The data was categorized by teacher move type, and I took note on which student answered the question. Then I went into the data and gave it an assessment (1 through 4 based on a rubric). These "grades" are not necessarily the same grades the students got in the unit. Unfortunately, I did not have the same amount of time and intellectual space to think about their responses as extensively as I am now, and I did not want to feel limited by the previous grade I had given them.
IV. Wild hunch: Research on literature shows that students are able to engage in literature by constructing personal connections to the text. I found in previous novels that students were trying to make a personal connection by searching for some sort of connection between the story and something in their own life, or by placing themselves in the situation of the main character ("what would I do if I were Scrappy?"). However, my hunch is that students are sometimes not able to genuinely make these connections maybe because it's too much of a stretch to connect something in their own life to the specific novel, or they take their own mindset into the story and don't really understand the character's viewpoint. My hunch is that they able to get deeply into the story and character by constructing a genuine personal connection by creating hypothetical situations using the mindset of the character, or act out a prediction of what will happen next. This can only happen when student thinking is focused on character motives and responses are rooted in text.
I. My research question emerged as one central question: "Which facilitation moves push students see the world from the perspective of the main character?" The subquestion is: what steps build up to I really chose to focus in on this one question because I wanted to know what I can do to help students reach this point. I became interested in this question as I was designing a literary unit on the book Lyddie by Katherine Paterson, about a poor farm girl in Vermont who has no choice but to go off and work for the textile factory in Lowell, Massachusetts in order to try to save the family farm. In previous novels, there was always a push for personal connections. In fact, personal connections were required for full credit on reader responses. However, I found that some students were attempting to answer the question, "What would I do if I were [this character]?" They would answer using their own mindset, using their own values and thoughts from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old middle class Jewish kid living in 2010. I wanted to find ways to get them to step into the character in the book. I developed a set of discussion questions that had this goal in mind: will this help students step into the mindset of the character? I found that developing my goal first, and planning backwards from there, was a very intentional and successful method for developing a literary unit.
II. For my data, I chose to focus on 6 students across a range of reading abilities and from both genders. I chose two students with weak reading abilities: Hannah has a hard time transferring events from a book into abstract ideas or a broader perspective. Bernie struggles with reading comprehension, but is able to grapple larger concepts and themes, but does this mostly from his own opinion, and does not readily look into the text to inform his answers. Brandon and Goldie are both hit-or-miss students. Their work is not consistent. Sometimes Brandon will respond to the reading thoughtfully and thoroughly, and sometimes he tries to do as little work as possible and still get full credit (self-admittedly). Goldie tends to go with her first thought and does not generally go over her work to revise or think about it. Gabby and Jude are both skilled readers and are able to read the text carefully for nuances and inferences with ease. Gabby thinks about what she will write, meticulously records her thoughts, and revises her work. Jude gives thought to his work as he's writing it, and his strong suit is that he brings fresh insight to the text, and probes deeply into it. I wanted to see the effect of my teacher moves across all reading levels.
Throughout the novel, I tended to call on these six students more often (selfishly), and recorded some of their class discussion input. I also photocopied their reader response journals, and videotaped one session (that I will use).
III. In analyzing the data, I categorized my teacher moves, which ended up falling under the categories: (1) giving them an interpretive question that focused on character motives, (2) giving them a prompt that called upon them to construct a hypothetical situation, (3) asking them broad questions about themes in the book (freedom, hope, the effects of industry), (4) posing a class discussion question centering on character motive, and (5) prompting them to act out what they predict will happen next. When looking at the data, I looked for (1) their ability to interpret the story and explain why the character did or said something, (2) their response contained a realistic portrayal of the characters and the situation, drawn from events previously in the story (3) their ability to transfer events in the book to big ideas using examples or explanations from the book, (4) contributions to a class discussion in response to another student's thoughts, and (5) their ability to act out a realistic and impassioned portrayal of their prediction that contains evidence of previous events in the book.
The data was categorized by teacher move type, and I took note on which student answered the question. Then I went into the data and gave it an assessment (1 through 4 based on a rubric). These "grades" are not necessarily the same grades the students got in the unit. Unfortunately, I did not have the same amount of time and intellectual space to think about their responses as extensively as I am now, and I did not want to feel limited by the previous grade I had given them.
IV. Wild hunch: Research on literature shows that students are able to engage in literature by constructing personal connections to the text. I found in previous novels that students were trying to make a personal connection by searching for some sort of connection between the story and something in their own life, or by placing themselves in the situation of the main character ("what would I do if I were Scrappy?"). However, my hunch is that students are sometimes not able to genuinely make these connections maybe because it's too much of a stretch to connect something in their own life to the specific novel, or they take their own mindset into the story and don't really understand the character's viewpoint. My hunch is that they able to get deeply into the story and character by constructing a genuine personal connection by creating hypothetical situations using the mindset of the character, or act out a prediction of what will happen next. This can only happen when student thinking is focused on character motives and responses are rooted in text.